Outpatient follow-up of high-risk babies at Lapa Specialized Rehabilitation Center (SRC)

Abstract

Background The Brazilian Ministry of Health has published, in 2012, the MS/GM Ordinance No. 793/12, establishing a Disability Care Network in order to extend access to people with temporary or permanent disabilities (progressive or stable, intermittent or continuous), to qualify the service care, to articulate and integrate the health services (from basic to specialized and hospital care) in such a way to guarantee an integrality care for these disabled people. The State and Municipal Health Departments of São Paulo have legitimized the guidelines with promotion, protection, prevention, monitoring, treatment and rehabilitation actions, providing, according to the principle of equity, greater emphasis on families with greater difficulty of access to health services due to issues of social vulnerability. Child health care is an essential task for health promotion, prevention of illness and identification of neuropsychomotor developmental delays by monitoring child development in the early years of life. As a consequence of low referral of high-risk babies to the Outpatient Care Plan established by SRC Lapa, the following consequences are expected: increase in children with physical, sensory, intellectual, social, emotional, speech and/or language disabilities. Objective To qualify the referral of high-risk babies to capacitate primary health care professionals (PHC) to identify them. Methods matrix support and permanent education meetings for PHC professionals in the Lapa region. Results After the proposed intervention, there was a significant increase in the number of at-risk infants referred to the outpatient clinic. Conclusions An integral and articulated care between the services of basic and specialized care of the Health Care Network made it possible to achieve greater functionality for children who presented some disability, thus allowing a future with more autonomy and social inclusion. Key message Prevention of diseases of at-risk babies an innovative technology in developing countries.